The Vigilante Chapter : Vol 1 The Suicide Collage
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU S2 universe, post Moriarty. Sherlock has kidnapped Anthea, and they and John have disappeared without a trace. Mycroft teams up with NSY to find out why, when John starts repeatedly faking his own death to throw off the press. The truth begins to come out when a shifty financer, Icarus Boehn , appears in the midst of the chaos...
1. Chapter 1 Study in Puppet Murders

**The Vigilante Chapter~**

**Volume # 1 The Suicide Collage~**

**Chapter 1: Study in Puppet Murders~ **

"I've never known him to do the like before, Mr. Holmes. Your brother is good, perhaps a little too good for the ordinary world. Now that I know he's MI6, it's making SO much more SENSE!"

Detective Inspector Lestrade's hair is standing on end. Behind him stands Sergeant Sally Donovan, and she looks stricken,as if it is absolutely mortifying to learn that Sherlock Holmes, dubbed "Freak", is actually an MI6 agent, a real life James Bond!

They all stand in the shamrock of chalklines , in what they thought was the scene of "Anthea"'s murder. But , as it turns out, the blood they have found on the scene is not Anthea's, it is Sherlock's. Exactly 1 pint. That he has measured out, and applied delicately to the scene with a paint brush. He has also affixed the boot prints that are the sizes of the killer that matches the description that Mycroft's staff reported as being the man that broke into Mycroft's study. The man that they believed took Anthea...

"So, what can we deduced from this scene ,Inspector?" Mycroft asked, curtly, in a tone that belied he already knew what had happened.

Greg was absolutely baffled.

"Honestly, I have no idea! It looks like Sherlock is the one that took your P.A.! But..why? "

Mycroft looked down at the beautiful shaw that Anthea used to drape over her favorite dress, drenched in the crimson dye of Sherlock's life. Why indeed would Sherlock take 1 pint of his own blood, ( most likely with the medical assistance of Doctor Watson,...) and sprinkle it over Anthea's clothes, and the floor of this frequented parking garage, in what appeared like a pagan ritual?

"It is quite clear actually, Inspector. You see, but you do not observe. But a very good estimation on your part, to your credit, yes, Sherlock most certainly is the one who has taken Anthea, that is so evident, as to be too obvious. Why?, now that is the question that you are blind to. Never make prognosis, without first gathering all the variables. Why would someone like Sherlock Holmes, renowed scourge of justice, suddenly convert to master of kidnapping, and the criminal act of falsifying documents, such as the papers recently placed on my desk that report Anthea as being in "Witness Protection" and John Watson, as K.I.A in the fire fight that invalided him from military service? Now we begin to see the reason behind Sherlock's uncharacteristic behaviour. This is not a murder scene formed to mislead us from finding some cloak-and-dagger serial killer ,ladies and gentlemen. This is not ,as might appear to the naked eye, the attempt of Sherlock Holmes to falsify a murder that he might add to his own credit for solving, because the use of his own blood is too ludicrous even for him- solve his own murder and "wow" the world?! Pshh...don't be absurd. He wanted his DNA on the scene, to act as his signature without actually placing his name upon it. He has created this scenario to forecast an attempted murder to us, disguising himself as the subjective killer ,and play- acting his murder before said killer can actually perform it, complete with costume, set, and stage effects. My little brother, has used his theatrics to both stop a murder, and to solve it at the same time. But rather than his usual show and tell, he has solved it for us, and left us a Demo Crime Scene. The reason why he must use such contortion to report to us? THAT is what we need to solve for!"

With a swift swipe of his umbrella ,like a sword across the air, Mycroft turned on his heel, and went back to the black car that he was driving, since half of his staff is on the watch for the mysterious return of Anthea's killer. Mycroft cluthces the wheel in white-knuckled puzzlement.

"Why, Sherlock? What are you on about, brother mine?" Mycroft mutters to himself.

That is when he finds the stub of a cigarette, one of the Diogenese club blends. One wrapped in treated paper, a paper an Easter egg blue on the end, instead of the regular white, already conspicuous for this trait. But what makes it really catch Mycroft's eye, is the fact that it is in his _car_, on his _dash _,in fact. Mycroft NEVER smokes in his car. He also is very careful with the disposal of these specialized cigarettes that he has had made for himself, because they will be an indicator of _his _smoking violations, as much of a silent signature for his prescence at a scene, as Sherlock's blood is for his own. For their specialized nature, Mycroft always keeps these particular cigarettes in his coat pocket. He has been wearing his coat the entire day, and the cigarettes have been in his front pocket. So for the cigarette to have been nicked, then someone would have to have stolen it from his front pocket. He's only been outside of his car twice today. Once when he got up this morning, showered and dressed, and walked directly from his home to his garage where it was parked. And once 5 minutes ago when he was standing at the "Puppet Crime Scene" with the clueless police officers, looking down at the mess Sherlock had made. No potential directly- from- the- front- of- him pick-pocketings then; it would have been too conspicuous a setting even for the master of all thieves, even if said thief-master had the ( unlikely) possession of one of Tolkien's fabled magic rings.

But to make matters all the more contorted, the cigarette is still smoking, still burning with a cherry red ember at the tip. Which means that very recently someone was sitting behind the wheel of Mycroft's car, with one of his special hand- crafted/ club- member- only cigarettes, puffing like the exhaust pipe of an engine.

Mycroft pulls out the pack of the other cigarettes and counts them all. 12. Exactly the number he'd had this morning. So there is no chance that one from this pack was recently stolen. He'd had 14 when the pack was made. He has smoked one. That should leave 13, but he already knows how he disposed of the other one. Just two nights ago, he had given it to Sherlock as a sort of peace offering for some meddling he'd done. Sherlock had , ironically, been too congested with a cold to indulge even his severe smoking habit that evening, and had slipped it in the front pocket of his dressing gown.

This fact coupled with the fact that there is only one other person on this planet that has the keys to this custom car, and that would be Anthea, Mycroft is convinced.

Sherlock was here, not more than 5 minutes ago, sitting in the cockpit of his car, smoking the signature cigarette, not having broken into said car, but having let himself in with Anthea's key.

"WHAT ,Sherlock? WHAT are you doing?!"Mycroft gasped, profoundly confused now. There could only be one explanation for why Sherlock was spying on him. He was obviously taking extreme measures to avoid immediate contact with him, and then he risks coming this close? Rapidly more obvious; now that his little brother is gone without a trace Mycroft is overly aware of all the little details of him that he has failed to make note of before. The rain evoked scent of his treated- wool coat, and the scent of his cologne hangs like a phantom in the air, faint but still traceable in haunting. His presence is elemental. He was here, very recently, but is obviously not still here . Mycroft even checks the back, and the boot, to be 100% certain. Sherlock is gone, but he has sent the message loud and clear.

"I am in grave danger, and that is what you are doing...trying to save me, via subliminal messaging... Very well ,Sherlock, I will play your Game..."


	2. Chapter 2 A Man And His 7th Suicide

**Chapter 2: A Man and His 7th Suicide~**

It would have seemed that the easiet way to reach Sherlock was through his unassuming young doctor /flatmate/ assistant. Oh, how wrong Mycroft was.

"Oh no, sorry, dear...Neither of them have been home for about 2 days. They told me they were going to Devon for a case..." Mrs. Hudson gasped, hands twisted up in a hanky, mascara staining.

"Oh? And that upsets you gravely?"

"No...I sometimes like to have the boys away. It sounds mean, but they are loud and messy..."

"Then why are you in tears, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Well,...this business in Devon must have gone very badly for John to have publicly comitted suicide for the 7th time today."

"Wha-?" Mycroft gasped, and Mrs. Hudson stepped to the side to allow him into the house.

"It's all over the web and the telly. I don't know what they went for, they don't usually say; I don't usually ask. Ever since that business with Moriarty...well...the boys keep things closer to the vest now...Except today they have the reporters all hot on the trail. Or... 7 trails, actually."

Mycroft sinks exhaustedly into Sherlock's arm chair, eyes wide before the telly.

_" THIS JUST IN-"

" The disturbing trend of suicides that kicked-off this morning with young Doctor John Watson, a service veteran that was invalided when mixed up in a rather bloody fire- fight in Afghanistan, and immortalized as the assistant of the infamous Sherlock Holmes, stepped out in front of a train, being killed instantly...While suicide is always a very distressing subject, what makes this case so much more objectively harrowing? The answer is simple, every reported act was comitted by the same person..." said the reporter sitting at the desk, clutching with shaking hands to a piece of white paper.

The scene flashed to Molly Hooper on the news. She was in her uniform and at Bart's , and looking obviously very distressed, worrying her bottom lip. The bottom of the screen was lit up with her name, and a description of her job.

" We received the news this morning, and what was left of the body was wheeled down here, for coroners to, you know, clean up. I was...devastated when I heard the news, John, oh..well..Doctor Watson...he's ,...a friend of mine. Almost didn't come to work today, until a supervisor in this unit phoned me and told me to come down ;that they had received ANOTHER corpse supposedly belonging to Doctor Watson. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears, this time they were saying that John- err...Watson...had ...uhm...blown his brains out? Well,the body was a dummy- I found that out just a few minutes into examining it. And then they kept piling in, one report saying he'd been killed by stepping into traffic, another saying they'd found him face down in a hotel bed, overdosed on sleeping tablets...One by one 'til suddenly there are 7 dummy bodies in my ward, and none of them are actually John Watson's...remains..."

The camera switched back to the reproters, with a photo of Sherlock in the split-screen box, leaping to his death from the roof of St. Bart's.

"Is this suicide scandal linked back to the suicide of the infamous fake genius Sherlock Holmes? Why has Doctor Watson waited for 2 years to do away with himself? Why has he done it 7 times? Will more cases ensue? Will one of the corpses turn out to be the genuine remains of Doctor Watson?...Nothing is certain, but intellectual advice for this evening is to stay close to home, and as far away as possible from the scenes of this One-Man Suicide Pact..."

The screen switched then to a telecommunications commercial.

Mycroft was staring slack-jawed at the screen.

WHAT was Sherlock up to?

"Do you have any idea what this is all about then, Mycroft?...Sherlock...has always been reckless...but this is not something that John would do...nothing at all like him!"

Mycroft swallowed,

"Unless of course...Sherlock put him up to it..."

"And why would he do something like that?!"

Mycroft let out a nervous laugh...His little brother...of course...simply too clever.

" Because it's conspicuous! See, Mrs. Hudson, someone has threatened our lives. Sherlock and John have been put on file as missing persons , and Anthea has also disappeared. This morning Sherlock created a mock crime scene using his own blood ,as a way of telling us that he had intercepted Anthea's murder. Then he left a message of sorts in my car, telling me that I'm in grave danger from someone ,which is why he is doing all of this. Next he goes and helps John fake his death 7 times, and Molly Hooper ends up on the news linked as a witness to the scandal? He has set it up of course, dear, he means for whoever has threatened us to be just as confused as we are...And by putting his dear friends in the limelight he makes them too much of a liability for whoever our enemy is to try and go after..."

Mrs. Hudson let a little nervous chirp...forgetting her tears, just glad that Sherlock was clever enough to be ahead of the Game...


	3. Chapter 3 World Class Criminals, Today

**Chapter 3: Today, World Class Criminals~ **

The rain is pouring down now, bleeding like tears out of the twilight. John grips the wheel of the ice truck with shaking hands. He has , after all, just faked his death 7 times, and some of the acts done to guarantee perfect execution have been harrowing.

Sherlock pops open the passenger side door, and rolls back in, eyes rolling in his head. He has dumped the last of his real blood that John drew out of him only because of the absolute neccesity of the situation, (at least a litre, maybe more) on the last false corpse of his. He has successfully faked his own murder for the 7th time, one time for every time John faked his own suicide. The idea behind this is to make it look as though John has killed him and then killed himself. And this is only the very beginning of their plan.

Sherlock hisses, and begins to wipe the blood off his fingers with a greasy towel.

"How is she?"

"Sleeping like a baby...Sedatives are always a nice thing to have handy ,mate, and thank God we didn't have to break into a pharmacy, or nick some bloody vitamin shop , I'd hate to turn into a world class criminal in just one day."

Sherlock laughed. "And I'd hate for Mycroft to be murdered...it makes for nasty business with Mummy."

John grit his teeth to keep from laughing. This was no situation for a giggle and they both knew it.

"So we drop Anthea off at Mycroft's place, and then what?"

"We go and threaten Mr. Boehn , of course."

"Yes, and what sort of name is Icarus?"

"Obviously a false one. Not even a nice one. Now put some fuel to it, John, it's not like we can really be seen anywhere for a while. We'll need disguises. Rather think I could turn you into a cocaine-dried out French model without prosthetics. .."

John snickered, and rolled his eyes.

"Ok, if you can do that, then you can turn me into Zoey Deschanel as well. If I have to be a lady, at least make me pretty..."

"Yes,but Zoey Deschanel is famous which will complicate things too much. I know, it's perfect. We will turn you into the imaginary valedictorian of Oxford, and I will be your ancient Professor."

"How'd you get to be a make- up artist, and master of quick change anyway?"

"Interned at a theatre throughout uni, have to have a means of paying for tuition, and it has served its purposes to me..."

John nodded, and turned around in his seat , looking at Anthea, who was fast asleep, head resting on Sherlock's neatly folded scarf.

"Oh God, I hope she's going to be ok now...Especially since we're not...Don't like wasting a whole litre of your blood, yeah?"

"Take us up from here, Doctor Watson, and you won't have..."


	4. Chapter 4 A Death Note Signed By 20

**Chapter 4: A Death Note Signed By 20 ~**

"UNBELIEVEABLE!" Greg shouts at the telly, just as Sally is rounding the corner with two steaming snap tops of cappuccino.

"What?" she gasps, just as the newscaster says,

"The disturbing trend of repetitious individual suicide has not stopped with John Watson. Further developement of the case shows that for every time Doctor Watson has reportedly killed himself, Sherlock Holmes, who has previously been presumed DEAD, has turned up Habeus Corpus at last, lying in a pool of his own blood. Forensics are reporting that the blood is indeed an exact match to Holmes' DNA. How then does a dead man turn up murdered 7 times in one afternoon, 2 years POST HIS SUICIDE?!...

The trend is furtherly complicated by the reported group suicides of at least 20 seperate civilians. The valedictiorian of Oxford university's English class, Drew Hathaway, was seen leaping to her death alongside her professor, one Professor of English Studies, James Harris Gable. These 2 were followed by 18 more individuals committing suicide in absurd ways whose names follow on the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen...

"WHY is he doing this? HOW is he doing this?!"

"What? Who?"

"Ok, Sally, so this is so obvious, even I can see that Sherlock is the one behind all of these deaths, and none of them are real. If they were, why have he and John died 7 times a piece before sunset? And all these other people, I've read off their names, in the exact order of this newslist, these people are the same people whose names are on that hit list Sherlock unearthed from the Ponzi scheme we busted a week ago..."

"So...you're saying...that _Sherlock..._has?"

"Yeah, I know, it's crazy, but he has obviously faked his own death-again-along with John's - and 20 people on this hit list, that might be giving us some kind of clue as to why he would do all of this...but...he's the one we consult for this sort of thing, and now he's created a case for me HE KNOWS THAT ONLY HE CAN SOLVE! So the question is...why?"

"Well...it's like Mycroft said...he's solving it for you, by acting it out..."

Greg looked off into space.

"The Cabby!"

He and Donovan shouted that out at the same time. Of course, the sponsored serial killer who coerced people to commit suicide, from that first case John showed up at the scene of. Of course, Sherlock was some how play acting this out to show them all that this was what _would _have happened if he hadn't stepped in.

"He's FORECASTING the killer!" Greg gasped, slapping the table.

Just then Anderson stepped into the room.

" That's not all he's doing..." he said holding up a newspaper.

"An obituary...dated 12 months from today, completed with 365 murders, which is one for every day of the year..." Sally gasped...seeing the index that read "1...365" and the date that said 3/30/2016.

"Yes, but WHY?!" Greg howled.

Anderson shook his head.

"Apparently only Sherlock can tell us that..and Sherlock is nowhere to be found. Or as good as dead if you go by the papers..."


	5. Chapter 5 Delivery Of A Hostage

**Chapter 5: Delivery Of A Hostage~**

Sherlock carried Anthea through the backdoor of Mycroft's house, John going behind him with the keys, leaving receipts and change, and any other little artifact from their adventures today that would alert the elder of the Holmes brothers to the true nature of their vigilante conversion, including the wig from his "Drew Hathaway" disguise.

"When will the sedatives wear off?" asked Sherlock from across the den.

"About an hour from now...We have more time than most of today to clear the area."

Sherlock nodded, and examined the scene around him,

"Ah yes...you have made such an obvious scene that even Lestrade couldn't miss it. Mycroft will catch on quickly enough. At least before its too late, and hopefully after I adjourn my meeting with Boehn..."

"You plan to actually go through with it then?"

"When Drew Hathaway and the others return from the cruise I booked them on with Boehn's money under all their noses they will have quite a story to tell. Incidently , it's too late to back out of this now...But its all fine ,John. We did what we meant to do. Mycroft is out of the cross -hairs, and Anthea is safe, delivered free on board if you will to His Majesty's royale palace. All that's left to do is raid his refrigerator and wait, and make a very narrow escape..."

"Well we might as well take advantage of his kingly shower before we head out. It will be the last one availble for God knows how long ,seeing as we are officially on the run. Oh, and you have a meeting in about and hour and a half with the leading financer of terrorism so I wouldn't want to show up a sweaty, false -sucidal mess if I were you."

"John, dressing you like a woman was a serious mistake, and I'm glad that the next disguise was a smallish Chinese bar tender. Wear lipstick if you insist on mothering me."

"I'll save you hot water, anyway. Why don't you have a chat with Anthea? It will be the first conversation of your life that you successfully fail to offend the other party, and it will be mostly because she's knocked out cold."

"Mycroft is binging again, and it makes for our great fortune! There's sushi, John! And all other manor of unhealthy foods, including, but not limited to a full bowl of Turkish delight. I might save you some of the feast, except that taking the full responsiblility for forcing Mycroft to resume his diet is rather tempting for me, and I won't be eating a proper meal again for probably a year..." Sherlock laughed, and ducked into Mycroft's kitchen.

John rolled his eyes, and headed for the shower room. Laughed at the lack of fancy soaps and hair product that would be in his own shower. A decided bachelor has less need of grooming than a people-person doctor always on the look out for a lovely female companion.

"What will Mycroft say when he finds out I washed up in his shower, and got mud from Thames all over the fancy linoleum? Probably the same thing he'll say when he finds a fake drowned himself at the bottom of said Thames, and learns that Boehn thinks he's dead..."


	6. Chapter 6: Anthea Awakes

**Chapter 6: Anthea Awakes**

"Oh, Anthea ,darling! I had already abandoned hope that my brother was actually competent enough to deliver you safely home. I see that he and Doctor Watson have been here, tramped mud through everything but especially my shower, and ate my food, all for the purpose of creating very obvious evidence of their appearance ,for forensics to document, when they uncover my body at the bottom of a river. How do I know that I am dead at the bottom of a river? John has left photographs of the deed, dear, in a file for a murder set to happen 2 days from this! So, can you tell me what in BLAZES are the boys up to?"

Anthea woke up to the words, and a spinning ceiling in Mycroft's rather trim home( his permanent residence, not the one he rents for parties in Kent, or the summer lodge in Dubai)

She hears her boss speaking, but his little brother is the man on her mind at the moment, as she remembers the last scene before the sedative Doctor Watson gave her about 4 hours ago sent her off into oblivion.

"Icarus Boehn...it's a false name, but you'll need to remember it. I'm not going to tell you who, I'm not going to tell you why. The name! Remember that name...My brother's life, -your life quite frankly ,Avonlea... depends on it..."

_Avonlea...He called me by my real name..._

Anthea ( or Avonlea if you like) rubbed her hand over her groggy eyes; Mycroft's face swimming in the pixel before her gaze. When her eyes closed, there in the water-colored twilight of her last few minutes of consciousness ,before what seemed eternal sleep, there Sherlock was, alive, and probably for the last time she would see him.

"It's going to be alright..You're going to survive this...But you have to tell my brother promptly...you have to remember the name...I'm sorry I've had to do all of this..Kidnap you, drug you...believe me, Avonlea, dear, it isn't my best interest either...But my brother loves you...he would never admit it to you, at least not until it were the end, and it were too late. But he is in love with you; making you the closest a woman has ever come to becoming a Holmes ,and my sister-in- law. I will save you, and at any cost...Remember that I told you that...I will save you at any cost..."

"Sherlock!" Anthea gasped, sitting bolt upright.

Mycroft was kneeling before her, an utterly confused expression on his face.

"Oh my God, he's going to do it...he's going to sell himself into their gladiator system..."

"What are you on about, love?"

"Sherlock...he saved me...from..."

Mycroft can tell by the forming tears that this means the end of Sherlock's life is predicted to come very soon.

"The name, Anthea, my girl, give me the name..."

"Icarus Boehn..." Anthea gasped.

And passed out again.


	7. Chapter 7 The Games Begin

**Chapter 7: The Games Begin~**

Icarus Boehn sat in his office chair overlooking London, thinking to himself how he was Nero to a burning kingdom, and Sherlock Holmes was the fire that had razed it to the ground.

At that exact moment, in walked Sherlock Holmes, alone.

* * *

"Where's the pretty doctor?" asked the Italian, rolling the "r" in pretty.

"Safe as kitchens...along with the rest of humanity as well, so long as I breathe the free air..."

"Mmm, which is why I should put a bullet in your heart tonight."

Boehn turned around, aiming a pistol straight for Sherlock's chest.

This was the only time that Icarus Boehn, the Lord of the Mafia, ever remembered having a man at gunpoint, and said man bubbling with low-growling laughter, teeth barring like a wolf.

"Kill me? Come now, that's 2 years out of style, _and _ trending. Haven't you read the papers, seems I've beat you to it?"

Boehn clattered the gun on the table, and took another long pull off his cigar.

"So, you've come about our transaction then, Holmes? And it looks like even lead won't change your mind..."

"If you want to prove yourself worthy of Moriarty's title; then you'll have to do what he could not..."

"Mmm, which was kill you?"

" If it were that simple, don't you suppose someone would have done it by now? There's been a lot of other contenders in the Game for Moriarty's crown ,other than you."

"Yes, but none of those before me were Moriarty's lover. They had his tricks,but I won his heart. Which makes me all the more suited for his kingdom, he named me the heir..." Boehn smiled, cheekily.

"He gave you your wings , Icarus."

Sherlock sat down at the desk, and propped his feet on it,purposefully kicking a hot cup of coffee over into Boehn's lap. Boehn hissed a curse, and Sherlock reached and plucked the cigar out of his mouth, sticking it between his own teeth, and taking a long, decided pull off of it.

"Mmm_* hiyyyyACCK!* "he coughed, actually coughing because he was wheezing with laughter.

"You know these things will kill you? But it's ironic isn't it, a dead man walking, concerned with his health? You ,Icarus Boehn, you are a dead man walking..."

"I am in perfect health, thank you."

"Oh, certainly, the picture of it, with rosey cheeks, made a little more rosey by your fairy dusting of rouge, a particular shade of pink, the favorite of the Dutchess of Cambridge, or so the papers say...But then, we all see how reliable the papers are these days...No, you are dead because there are so many debts which you cannot pay. So rather than go to the gallows yourself, like a valiant man would do, you've decided to sell men to champion you. The Gladiator Trade, the sponsored murder system, lives to pay your debts..."

"You've come to convict me, Sherlock?"

"I've come to ...what is it the Godfather would say? 'Make you an offer you couldn't possibly refuse'."

"Im listening..."

"You need a champion...Somebody to take your place a the Stake. Moriarty wanted a martyr. He wanted to burn me, burn the heart out of me...Can you make Moriarty's Virgin the very likeness of Joan of Arcadia? Can you do what the King could not...and sacrifice me by fire?"

"So THIS is the reason for the absurd gambit you posed today, with your assumed murder, and Watson's suicide pact with himself? It was an advertisement for me, to show me that _you_ are the whole package I am searching for, and those 20 people, and Watson, and Anthea or whatever her name is, and Mycroft Holmes, shouldn't have to die?"

" You are the CFO of the largest bank in the world to this date, and you moonlight as the Auditor of Crime, as Moriarty's bookkeeper. And now that the King is dead, the books are showing that there are no sufficient funds to pay back what he owed his many business associates. Which means that the angry masses of the United Mafia come to you, and you bear the full weight of the blame. Which influences you to make them a bargain, to give a trade that will be both bankable, and bloody, and so feed all their fancies. Under the name of the Moriarty crime enterprises, and laundering funds from the banks fo the European Union, united under the name over your doorpost, under the name of Helios Banks, you have revived the Roman murder franchise, and ressurected the Gladiator..."

Icarus smiled.

"Perceptive...Now I see why Jim wanted you so badly...To be honest , I was jealous..."

"Jealousy, anger, wings made of plaster...Icarus, flying too close to the Sun...Take it from the poster child for falling, you are on a very precarious edge...A centimeter more, and you, Mr. Boehn, are ripe for a fall...Call upon all the men and angels that you please...No one can save you now..."

"Except for you perhaps. Your reputation, in unraveling Moriarty's Network precedes you...You have come to show me that you are just the right sort to save me...Not a man, not an angel...A demon...A utterly horrific vampire of Mod Draculean form, come to terrorize and intoxicate the slaves of the night with your beauty, and the desperation to prove yourself clever..."

Sherlock laughed,coldly.

"Stupidity must know no bounds! I haven't come to _save _you, Mr. Boehn! I've come to offer you a chance. Choose me as your champion, and let me work my power into the system you have dug yourself into...and perhaps when the dust settles and the smoke clears, I will offer you some faint but glittering hope of clemency...Or...don't choose me, and see how truly dark I can be...You have the Torture Labs you funded, and the name of John Watson to thank for that..."

Boehn swallowed. He knew either way he was going to lose. Yes, this was indeed an offer he couldn't refuse.

"Alright, Sherlock, we'll do it your way, and if you can compete with the legions of Rome; I will turn myself in."

" Pray that I perish, or that you will be faithful to our contract. Otherwise wish you had never been born, and maybe God will grant your wish..."

And with that Sherlock Holmes was gone.

Icarus Boehn sank in his seat.

"Oh...he is too powerful for us, Jim! Alas, we have created a monster!"


	8. Chapter 8 Men's Hearts Failing

**Chapter 8: Men's Hearts Failing Them For Fear ~**

It had been two hours. Two hours since Anthea had breathed _THAT _name, and sent Mycroft's world careening into a death spiral to match the agonies of the smouldering jet gone belly-up mid air, like a dying fish of the sky.

His little brother...was bating the hook for Leviathan, and about to drag the darkest, most horrendous serpent of the Modern World out of the belly of Hell, and into the light.

Mycroft stood in a committee room, surrounded by members of the Parliament, and MI6 agents of the highest of their field.

Lady Smallwood was on the verge of passing out.

"We...we sent Sherlock Holmes...into the Moriarty system...but..are we absolutely certain we know entirely what dark secrets he emerged with?"

Mycroft was ready to tell the truth. If it meant saving Sherlock from himself.

"No, Lady Smallwood...There were many times when we lost surveillance of Sherlock. The true nature of his time in the Moriarty Tartarus is unknown."

"Tartarus?" asked a rookie agent, called in for her excellent communications skills.

"Tartarus...it is the Greek myth of the Deep Abyss, the dungeon that was said to be as far below hell as earth is below heaven...Which happens to be the namesake for the specific torture chamber that Moriarty and his network designed for my brother as a sort of "Herculean Labor". A contest if you will, to see if he could outsmart all of their traps, in exchange for the life of John Watson, whom they had sworn to kill...as well as ...myself." Mycroft gasped ,quietly.

There was deep silence. Mycroft Holmes had just admitted that his little brother had sacrificed his soul to save himself, and Watson, and indirectly their lives, because he had gone that distance to save their commanding officer. This was a deeply humbling moment...

Mycroft white knuckled the table.

"The main objective at this point, is to locate my brother and Doctor Watson, and to learn the true nature of the bargain that Sherlock has made with Icarus Boehn. The balance of Western civilization hangs upon this moment, ladies and gentlemen. We are faced with a battlefield divided by the very flaming river of the Phlegethon itself...We are upon the brink of that disastrous hour in which men's hearts are failing them for fear. So, I ask you, what are we going to do about it? Do we surrender to cowardice now?...

Or do we rise up from the ashes of the souls consumed in the wake of our greed and ignorance, and take back what is ours from the hands of deception? Do we quench the serpent before he ever arises from the bootprint of justice again?

This is the moment...ladies...gentlemen...where we prove whether we are truly the material of legacy, or whether we shall fade away in the East Wind that takes us all in the end..."

Mycroft's words echoed off the room, in the silence of the wake of Fire. Sherlock's terrible Fire...was upon them again...They were about to see what Chaos would ensue from the magnificent forces of justice the Scientist of Deduction would unleash upon the Unseen World of the Secret Services one last time...


	9. Chapter 9 Andromeda

**Chapter 9: Andromeda~**

The emotions that burned in that committee office were a strange mix of fire , tears of the agents, and a profile wreathed in ice, though perhaps only black ice in its breaking. And she had never seen him like that before...

So ,Anthea considered what could make the Ice Man thaw for that one epicenter moment of disaster as the moment before when he had learned, and the rest of them could only guess at, what sort of terror was upon them.

Anthea pondered all of this, as she made inconspicuously down the sidewalk in front of the building, seven Secret Service agents shadowing her like wolves do their prey, but guarding her from an Enemy as mysterious as they were.

She was headed to Mycroft's office, to file some paper work. The office wasn't even a mile from here, but she was not allowed to move in daylight without convoy again.

Of all those mysteries Anthea weighed in her heart that day, one was the heaviest of all.

How was it that the man that had saved her had been labeled by the markings of some holy terror in the eyes of the press, and the British government?

What exactly happened to Sherlock in the Tartarus?

She knew that he had been tortured. She'd even seen some of the wounds. Well, for a moment, before she had to flee the room, to escape the embarassment of throwing up all over the Consulting Detective.

Why Sherlock? The once egotistical, stoic genius now fallen from grace. And how had the mighty fallen? He'd only been relocated to Baker Street for exactly 5 months, which was about the time it took to acclimate Watson to him again, Watson having been utterly traumatized himself ,when Mycroft had told him the nature of the Work Sherlock had willingly been occupying himself with for 2 years, and had told him how his life was directly prolonged at Sherlock's expense.

Only John Watson truly knew the full scale depth of the Fall of Sherlock Holmes.

Something else that would never cease to amaze Anthea, was how John Watson, a simple Army medic, could slip past seven agents, with perfect ease.

He just came walking towards her, same kind smile and ruffled blonde hair of the unassuming veteran who was far more volatile than he appeared.

* * *

"Hello, Avonlea."

"...John?"

John laughed, delighted that she remembered his name this time.

"It doesn't take living with Sherlock Holmes to 'deduce' by the look on your face that you have no bloody idea what's going on, do you?"

"No...no I...how did you get past...my ..."

"Your guards? Easily enough, nobody is looking for a dead man,are they?"

Anthea swallowed.

"John...what is going on? Why...did you do all that?"

"You remember?"

"Well, I heard about it on the telly anyway...I guess I was present though ,wasn't I? After you and Sherlock found me trapped in that bank vault, God knows how, and then Sherlock slipped me something...You'd think I was being taking advantage of...or at least I would have, if I didn't know Sherlock..."

John smiled, an almost childlike smile. It made Anthea feel like everything was fine, when there was no chance of that being true.

"I can't tell you exactly what's going on at the moment, because it would put too many people at risk. Names...details. Let's just say this is about what most of these things usually are about, money and power. Only with psychopaths, and I mean the legitimate pyschopath, and not a Hollywood recreation, it never can be quite that simple, yeah? You are...at some serious risk, Avonlea, which is why Sherlock sent me to speak with you one on one. If he came near you, or if we both came near you...it would register a response from the higher ups. But nobody notices the likes of the humble physicians, so take this as doctor/patient confidentiality. The blokes behind all this ruckus are trying to parody the Greek myth of Andromeda and the Leviathan. They consider themselves to be the Leviathan, the huge enterprise system ,a company that will swallow the British government, and next the United Nations. It's the attempt to make a very confused hybrid of capitalism and socialism. It would take Sherlock to be able to expalin it thoroughly ,anyway, and then you'd probably have to record it and listen to the tapes, you know about his motor mouth, have to stand on tiptoes and tilt your head just to even hear every word, much less understand it!

Andromeda was the princess that the people tried to sacrafice to the Leviathan to appease its wrath or whatever. The blokes behind all of this see you as Mycroft's princess. The Ice Man would never even give you the faintest inkling, but he is in love with you ,dear, which has complicated things...Uhm, because they look at you like you are Mycroft's damsel in distress,...they have decided that you are Andromeda, the lady they will sacrifice to the Company,...and...manipulate Mycroft with your impending murder."

There was a pause, Anthea's mouth gaping, as she understood.

"They are trying to use me...to get inside Mycroft's head? Make him reason...incorrectly?"

John shook his head, "I don't think the Holmes boys are capable of anything but calculation. But it's like Mycroft said, 'Caring is a disadvantage.' He might calculate greater risks if he sees you threatened directly, and say its in the name of security of state, and probably believe that, but in reality it will be 'cause he's in love with you...They are trying to use you to destroy him, Avonlea..."

"So...why didn't they...just go ahead...and?" She couldn't say 'kill me'. Just now the situation had totally hit home...

"To be blatantly honest with you, after what he did to the Network these last 2 years, these people, pretty much the entire criminal Underworld, are actually twice as terrified of Sherlock as they are of your boss...Sherlock is the reason why they didn't go through with it...They put you in that bank vault instead, like a post office box pick up sort of thing...

Sherlock...is...really not like he used to be...He never was a fraud,but he's had to come clean on a lot of things he was involved in that I didn't know about until recently. He's actually a special division of the British government himself, the Consulitng Intelligence, and that's all I can tell you. Most of the rest of the world calls him 'The London Devil'. But the code word that's been circulating around the most, the one that will help Mycroft keep this under control is 'Prometheus'. Sherlock is 'Prometheus'. Tell your boss that..."

John turned away, and began to walk into the shadows, still miraculously unnoticed by the finest agents in all of MI6.

"John,wait!"Anthea gasped.

John turned around.

"Everything is going to be ok."

He said that with such conviction as to bring legions to their knees.

And then he was gone...

Anthea stood in the lights of the city, offset by the shadows of the criminal world, wondering what she had gotten herself into...


	10. Chapter 10:Theatrics

**Chapter 10: Theatrics~**

Mycroft slams the brakes of the sleek onyx- shaded vehicle he's been tearing up the streets of London in, like a phantom fish in the bloody streams of Hell.

Never in all his wildest dreams did Mycroft Holmes believe he would be in such a chase. Chasing the criminals to the scene of Sherlock's...invitation?

Sherlock was standing on top of a stack of tires, in the middle of Trafalgar Square,which has been turned into an execution sight lined up with the great fountain as the center piece.

Sherlock lifted a megaphone to his lips, and the City of London, and the World came shrieking to a stop along with the breaks of the priceless car that Mycroft has just thrown into park, as he leaps out of an almost-still-rolling vehicle, and bloodies his knees as he hit the ground running just a little too hard.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Your Majesty, and the Greater London Authority,..." Sherlock began, drawing the megaphone away, and performing an elegant bow from the days of the Courts.

Mycroft's breath caught.

Please,God. The blood rushes to the Ice Man's ears, straight from the darkest fears hidden beneath his cold exterior. _So _alive in this one deep breath, right before the noose snaps on humanity, and all comes to darkness and that gut-wrenching struggle that is the few seconds of death.

Please,God...not Sherlock. His little brother, the Scapegoat of London?!

" On this evening, you shall now be told the truth, and nothing but the truth, and God help you lot, if your silly little brains can even handle the trauma of this truth. Hello,what?!-aaahhh -Sherlock Holmes is back from Hell, you say? Here and gone ,ladies, gentlemen...May I introduce to you Icarus Boehn, the CFO of the largest banking system in this world that seemingly emerged overnight, Helios Banking Services, where atleast 75 percent of you have deposited your entire life's earnings, for the benefits they provide. Regretably, I must also introduce to you, Icarus Boehn, the Lord of the Mafia for 13 years running, who also happens to be the Chief Financial Officer in the Secret Society of Roman and Classic Revival, known as Leviathan, the perpetrator and provider of many of the exploits of the-one-time-acquitted-but-forever-infamous James Moriarty, who also happened to be his gay lover. I hope you have your pen's poised to the page, as I will make the ink bleed from you pages today. You have all been seriously deceived; that one time guarantee deal that looks too good to be true, most often times is, my unfortunate audience.

Unfortunately for the lot of you who have been wronged by this Master of Creative Accounting, his crimes are too complex for any civil authority to bring to justice, which is why I have taken it upon myself to do it for you instead, even going so far as to emerge from my grave for this sole purpose. I and the Legions of Rome are back from Hell for another round of Moriarty's Great Game, the Gladiator Round! I am afraid that I will have to ask every one of you to lend us your city for the duration of these games. You can think of it as being like the Summer Olympics, spiced up with fire and blood. On my honor though, it will not be a single drop of yours. But the Legions shall roll their heads at your feet, and the blood will spill in justice for every fool that made allegiance to the name of Moriarty or his criminally syndicated Tartarus. We appreciate your patience, as it will be too long of a shot ,and in a world about to go horrifically dark, to anticipate your understanding."

Sherlock threw down the megaphone, and stretched a hand out to John, who was standing behind the pyre this whole time, and whose appearance frightened a whole group of passerby into screams.

" This is one of those times you had better be as clever as you're always spouting off!" John barked, and folded his arms.

"Oh I am, I can assure you."

" Oh I know, no one could fake being an annoying poltergeist all the time."

The two of them broke into laughter, as a seriously offended Icarus Boehn pulled out a high powered torch, and an unclearly marked barrel of fuel stuffs.

"Sherlock!" Mycroft cried, heart racing, mind making a thousand -thousand calculations at once, as civil control rested solely on his shoulders from this point on.

"Let the Games begin!" said Icarus Boehn into the megaphone.

"Good luck, Myc!" Sherlock shouted, winking at him from the top of the pyre. John just looked down his nose at him, like all of this was very annoying.

Then Boehn dumped the gas on the pyre, and turned the torch to it.

A flare-gun grade glare of bright pinkish-white light went off, and burned so hot in singed Mycroft's skin and hair. There were terrific screams, and voices calling the news out to confused camera crews that had somehow affixed themselves to the scene just in time to caputre that horribly surreal instance.

The glare faded away in a series of blinding flashes that standing up under left Mycroft faint with vertigo.

To the horror of the news cast, Boehn, Sherlock and John had all disappeared.

Mycroft cursed loudly, trying to think.

But then he mentally began to go back over the image of the fuel container, genius intellect stepping to bat in trying to console his confusion to what really just happened.

Out of the darkness and the smoke, Mycroft finally began to form a clue as to what was really taking place with Boehn's return, and how it was being managed.

"Thank you, Sherlock. Your theatrics have finally paid off..."


	11. Chapter 11:Confession

**Chapter 11: Confession~**

_Baskerville..._

The name rings hollowly in Mycroft's soul, as he slips up the steps and past the bowed, white marble statute of the angel weeping into his hand. So serious was the revelation of the gas container in Trafalgar square, that he has been driven to the church to pray.

"Failure comes back to haunt us all...We are the ones who have done this to you...Sherlock..." thinks Mycroft as he slips into the water-colored softness of the stain-glass sanctuary, and sits down.

No one is here, the priest himself being otherwise occupied.

_Baskerville..._

* * *

Of course...the truth always bleeds to the surface, and aches like the pain of being kicked in the teeth, in the end. Baskerville... The chemical testing sight of the British Empire. The think-tank and playground for Moriarty and his lover to form the Tartarus that cost Sherlock his soul. That is where the fuel that produced such a blinding fire illusion came from. That is where this whole system of Theatrics came from. Sherlock's Olympian contest with the devil was being sponsored by Baskerville...

* * *

Mycroft sat down softly on an archaic wooden pew, and felt the burden of the passing of the years, like the armor of the Knights Templar rattling about him, as they marched down into the Abyss. He'd been grafted into this system ,against his will, somehow by the chivalric code of England. England herself was to blame for this day...

He sat there lamenting the sins of his fathers with head in hands, when they came, one on his right hand, and one on his left ,and sat down. He felt the swish of blue linen as a scarf was adjusted, and he heard the clicking of a gun being respectfully put away in the presence of the Almighty God.

Mycroft lifted his head, and looked to his right to see Sherlock, and looked to his left to see John sitting side by side him.

"So it is time for confession between us ,then?" Mycroft said quietly.

"You know why we have come..."Sherlock said softly, but his voice still echoed like the spirit of the Phoenix trapped in an iron bell, off the walls of the ancient sanctuary.

"And after this it'll be goodbye, Myc. We're shoving out tommorow, off to the bloody games!" John whispered, drawing into his jacket a little more snugly, pale with the cold.

Mycroft let out an exhausted sigh, and began to voice all that he had discovered about this case:

"Icarus Boehn was the creative accountant that oversaw all of Moriarty's transactions between himself and his Network, during his career as the consulting criminal. All of the years that we combated the Network we thought that Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's personally hired assassin, was the unseen hand in many of the unclear foul plays that presented themselves to the playing field, and so we focused too heavily upon his role...But all along you were aware that someone, ultimately Boehn, was behind the scenes to manipulate the numbers ,and pad Moriarty's wealth, making his lies bigger and bigger, till he was the goldfish in a rather shallow pond, that became the massive white whale that the English government was distracted by, so that the Roman and Classic Revival Society (a radical politcal secret society that believed in the combination of a hybird of socialistic ethics and capitalist competition) the Leviathan- could slip through the cracks in the dam of our national securities unawares, and entrench the United Kingdom with terrorists in smashing tuxedos...Formed from out of Moriarty's criminal Network's equities, and padded accounts provided by Boehn, Helios Banks emerged to the limelight of the Commonwealth, and the unsuspecting masses took the poison willingly, because the massive domineering banking service franchise of contemporary date offered benefits impossible in other business, based entirely off of the creative expertise of the Auditor of Crime. Unbeknownst to the British empire, our citizens were now funding terrorism targeted at themselves, literally braiding their own noose. But then, 20 civilians, an Oxford valedictiorian and her professor, and 18 others in law and business occupations, who had acquired loans and grants for their own endeavours, actually rooted out the corruption of Helios Banks, by detecting in their inquiries, a tiny Ponzi scheme meant to be a sort of flush fund for some of Boehn's more personal endeavours. All 20 of them, and my ..."Anthea",being alerted by flags to my accounts of transactions I did not make... wanted to bring the case before higher authority,but also civil authority to ensure that all threats against their persons were adminstered to. And so they consecutively brought New Scotland Yard the case, hoping the civilian police would be able to get to the bottom of it,and protect them from threats of physical assault, ( an actual hit list surfacing later) made against them by Helios employees ,the deeper they dug into their personal investigation. Greg Lestrade, having recently been informed by Anthea, (in relation to this case specifically),that you were alive and relocated to London, had hoped that you would be able to source the problem, and when you did, you discovered that not all of Moriarty's bones were buried as you had hoped. You finally traced Boehn to the source, and the great white whale, the Leviathan asleep at the bottom of some long forgotten and seemingly mythical pool such as the Roman and Classic Revial Society,was finally rousted off the bottom of the chasm he'd been lurking in. You finally had your white whale, the one that had driven you to the Tartarus, Sherlock, for because of the gambles you made against the devil in the dark, you recognized this nameless threat the moment he appeared. And so, you orchestrated a massive drama, that would have won the heart of Shakespeare, and covered all of your liabilities...Just as a Crime Lord had lulled the Secret Services to sleep with his bedtime fairytale classic villainy, and sent us down a dead end road, so too would a vigilante coming back from his grave wake us up to our arrogant blindness. When we were on the guillotine, and they had chosen Anthea to use as their leverage, her ransom meaning the British government's whoredom to the Roman and Classic Revival Society,and her murder being cause for war...you staged the confusion, and acted ,before the eyes of the Media, the scheduled murders_ all acts neccessary to become that needed vigilante. By agreeing to pay the ransom yourself, and go back to the Hell you thought you had escaped, you saved us from certain destruction, and stirred us from our anesthetic distraction. By the demonstration in Trafalgar square today, with a chemical that would undoubtedly trace this Gladiator game, (a contest of your solving tormenting puzzles ,the prize being the lives you have sworn to protect),back to Baskerville, you proved to us what our darkest fears denied. We, by having instated Baskerville and enabled it with our funds for so long, have created this Leviathan. The labs in Baskerville, and the revenue of the English people, have created this beast...We are to blame for its uprising...and so in the end, Moriarty will get the martyr that he wanted. But it won't be Anthea on the stake for ransom now...It will be his Virgin. It will be Sherlock Holmes..."

Sherlock laughed,and smiled like this were all the most wickedly clever thing that had ever taken place on earth.

"Bravo, Mycroft! That was absolutely spot-on, and I liked to hear it the way you told it. Never thought it would be so fun to be the one causing all the puzzles instead of solving them!"

"Don't make a habit of it!" John hissed.

Sherlock chuckled, and fingered a stopwatch.

"Cheap parlor tricks,... exploiting the effects of the H.O.U.N.D serum, released on witnessing civilians, that's how we convinced witnesses of mine and John's deaths , as well as the deaths on the hit list, if you were wondering. We simply made them believe they were going to see him comitting suicide under certain circumstances, via props and optical illusions, and under the effects of the aerosol hallucinogenic, their minds actually tricked them into literally seeing those events take place. To finish it off we used costumes, make up, and a litre of my blood for stage effects."

"Should have gone into show-business. Maybe something to think about when we retire."John shrugged, scanning the room around him, obviously acting as Sherlock's body guard.

Sherlock placed the stopwatch in Mycroft's palm.

"A gift from the Auditor of Crime. Consider it a business token of appreciation. He has accepted the tender of payement, and is willing to have it all underway..."

"I'm assuming by that stupid little smirk flirting with the edge of your lips that you used coercion to influence his decision?"

"I suppose I just reminded him of all the reasons why I am the obvious client." Sherlock said cooly, the impish little smirk turning into a full blown,devious grin.

"What am I going to say to our mother if you don't come back to us alive?" Mycroft whispered, voice arctic.

"No worries. As long as there's a puff of air left in my lungs and a drop of blood left in my heart Sherlock is going to pull through!" John whispered, chambering the gun again loudly to the silence of the sanctuary.

"Well, forgive us Mycroft for we have sinned. We came to say goodbye, and we take our leave of you now. Whilst you're hear, pray for us. The path of the righteous appears to be the road to damnation under certain lights..." Sherlock gasped.

As silently as they'd appeared the two of them were gone, leaving Mycroft staring up at the image of Christ affixed to the Cross.

"Well if anyone would know...I believe You would...?It seems only the logical thing to do...ask the One Whose profession is Atonement... then...Be a light unto the path of the righteous, and forgive the trespasses of these afflicted...before time runs out..."Mycroft said to the bowed stone figure, voice ringing like frozen waves of sound into the impressionism of that solemn place...


	12. Chapter 12 Prayer of the Fates

**Chapter 12: Prayer Of The Fates~**

This was the end, and they both knew it.

Sherlock and John stood in the center of the Moor, and a cold wind was blowing.

"So...do you think...Mycroft can...ehem...settle the score with the blokes up in Baskerville, regardless of what happens to us? "

Sherlock was standing on a white stone, the wind tossing his dark coat about his legs like it were the banner of the angel of death, and lifting his sky blue scarf like the tear-soaked veil of the dying bride. He had stooped,- how low he had stooped to conquer. As a matter of fact, he had fallen from grace. But it was in his darkest hour that his fire burned with brightest fury. Oh, how hell quailed to think that it had released that daunting fire upon its own leagues!

" Mycroft will come to the scene of the crime, to see the evidence for himself...And then the Work will be complete ,John, my friend..."

Sherlock turned to face John Watson, in the hour that the golden sunset crowned him like Arthur returned for one last conquest. His dark golden hair was tousled in the wind, and his eyes smouldered with the blazes of the last of his courage, like the fire in a nose-diving fighter jet, brought down by the Milky Way swept out of heaven. He had folded his hands around his Browning, and looked as placid as a priest on Sunday morning. Above all else,his expression was unwavering, his shoulders were unbowed. He was a soldier to the very end.

"My only friend..." Sherlock remarked with a wry smile, and the two stood just staring at each other in silence for a long moment. There was little more to be said now. But if anyone would have the last word, by God, it would be Sherlock Holmes!

"You were the most faithful of companions, and the truest believer in my Work. You played the Game for the Game's own sake...And I thank you for that. There is no way to be certain that our plan will succeed. Success will ultimately mean our death. Failure will mean an uprising that has not been seen in this nation since the historical Dark Ages, unless of course unseen forces move the pieces in our favor. In short, I asked you to follow me to the Gates of Hell, and you did not disappoint me. The Work has all been for you, for you are the only one who truly deserves its legacy. I owe you my soul and so today it is yours, and I swear on my dying breath that if one of us were to come out of this alive , it will be you. You John Watson...you were meant to live, and be the conducter of light that this world lacks."

This speech was made without emotion, actually without expression, and then Sherlock extended his hand.

"To the best of times."

John smiled, and reached and grabbed his hand, giving it a firm clasp.

" Honestly ,Sherlock, I'm flattered. But I didn't follow the Work, or believe in the miracles. I followed because of the man. The best and the wisest I ever knew. Someday people will look back and call him a hero. Someday people will look back and call him a vigilante. But I called him brother, and perhaps I'm the only one who knew there was a human being inside of the machine. The most _human _human that ever walked the World. His name was Sherlock Holmes."

"Even if we survive, _everything _is about to change."Sherlock muttered.

John leaned close, a sincerity in his eyes that could bring legions of angels to their knees.

"Then let's pray that fate will be kind to Mycroft, and let him unravel the last thread of the puzzle we cooked up for him..."


End file.
